


when loneliness came when you were away

by notthatcircus



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Alcoholism, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Mourning, also gwen shuri and tony are only mentioned, also this movie is a healthy mix of tasm and mcu, but its there i promise, clint's appearance is very brief i'm sorry, disorded eating, gwen stacy's important to me let me live, gwen's still alive because i said so, i might expand upon it later who knows, implied alcoholism, it's also small and not my best work, it's sad i won't lie, it’s mentioned at the beginning so, lmk if u want depression or ptsd tagged, now for actual tags, the idea of a slightly older peter stepping into tonys shoes post endgame, the peter/gwen is just implied, theyre both hinted at if u squint but i wasnt sure if it was big enough to tag, this fic is just like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 03:16:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthatcircus/pseuds/notthatcircus
Summary: Shuri’s AI plans that had used Tony for a voice lay crumpled up and sitting in the trash can in the corner. They’d been a gift and he adores her, really, but the last thing he needs is Mr. Stark hawking suggestions at him. He’s gone and Peter doesn’t need a babysitter or a father anyway. The universe made that perfectly clear.or, alternatively,tony's gone and peter misses him, but he's too busy working away in the lab to really talk about it.





	when loneliness came when you were away

Peter’s been in the lab for the past four days, has eaten maybe half of a package of rice cakes in that timespan, and is absolutely positive his phone is broken.

He threw it at the wall. It kept ringing, and he was tired of looking at the flood of texts and calls, so he ripped off the plastic, flimsy excuse for a case and lobbed it at the wall like someone might do with a baseball. It hasn’t rang since.

Blink. Blink. Blink. The words in front of him don’t make sense. He typed them, he _knows_ this, but right now he’s staring and nothing’s cohesive. 

Right now, he’s working on his suit. He needed better webbing, and before that he needed better durability while maintaining his levels of flexibility, and before _that_ he had come to redesign his suit -- a task he gave up on almost immediately. Tony gave him a key forever ago, but he’d waited until Pepper said it was okay. Aunt May didn’t raise a kid without manners, thank you very much.

Right now, he’s devising an AI that can do, in layman’s terms, exactly what Tony’s could do. He started with stripping all the baby monitor and safety protocols, and then he tackled the issue of breaking down all the different modes because they made him feel like a toddler. Shuri’s AI plans that had used Tony for a voice lay crumpled up and sitting in the trash can in the corner. They’d been a gift and he adores her, really, but the last thing he needs is Mr. Stark hawking suggestions at him. He’s gone and Peter doesn’t need a babysitter or a father anyway. The universe made that _perfectly_ clear.

FRIDAY’s voice comes in over the speaker. The last time she’d said anything had been about two nights ago, reporting that Hawkeye was at the door and had brought dinner. Peter had no idea how he’d heard about the lab being occupied, but he’d waved him off with an “I’m busy”. Security footage shows Clint sighing, muttering “you get more like him every friggin’ day”, and skipping off. Probably to Gwen’s to tell on him, but that’s just a guess.

“Miss Potts has arrived. Shall I allow her in?” The AI sounds resigned, a sigh to her voice that he might just be imagining.

“It’s her husband’s place,” Peter responds distractedly, tapping in the same line of coding for the thousandth fucking time and still getting frustrated when it doesn’t function as intended. Maybe it’s the order he has wrong. Maybe he’s got the wrong function in mind. Maybe he just needs to _sleep._

Hesitantly, she presses, “is that a yes, Peter?”

It had taken him five entire minutes to snap at her to stop calling him Mr. Parker. It made him feel too much like a stranger lurking in halls he’d never been in and he has been here, he knows he’s been here, but it was never without Tony around. The halls were always filled with classic rock or the smell of takeout, and on the rare occasion he showed up earlier than his mentor, Tony was still, somehow, present. Maybe it was the knowledge he’d turn up sooner or later, maybe it was just the aftershave and lavender laundry detergent that lingered in the air. One way or the other, this building had never felt so empty. It had never felt so _lonely._

“You think he would have taught you what an indirect answer is,” he murmurs, an exasperated exhale escaping him just before he says, louder, “ _Yes,_ it’s a yes, Fri.”

She’s silent for a beat while the sound of a purse and keys to follow it fall onto something padded, probably a couch. He can hear Pepper’s heels clatter to the floor while he goes back and tweaks his previous line. FRIDAY then chirps, “she’s approaching the lab doors. Shall I let her--”

A keypad is tapped into before she can even finish her question (to which Peter was going to decline, thank you, no, I don’t want you to bring some lunch up) and the door opens, Stark Industries CEO standing there barefoot with a frown that Peter really, really doesn’t like.

“What are you working on?” she asks instead of _how are you holding up_ or _why are you in here_ because she already knows the answers, and they’re _I’m fine_ and _I’m working._ She sounds strange to his ears, but he can’t really tell if it’s because of the super-hearing or if it’s because he’s grown used to how quiet it was only moments before. There’s a practiced kind of nonchalance to her voice that Peter’s only ever heard directed at others, a specific brand of hopelessness that makes him think of losing a fight before it even starts. It feels familiar in a bone-deep kind of why, but right now his brain isn’t making the connection he wants. His neurons aren’t firing off properly. His nerves hurt in a disintegrating sort of way.

“Suit. Adding a better AI. Last one was better at babying me than helping me.”

She disagrees with this but hums anyway. He lets the miscommunication slide and sighs at the typo he just made.

“The suit looks nice.” It’s the most acceptable response she can think of, but it comes after a silence that stretches miles. The widow hangs back to lean against the doorway. For a moment, he peeks up at her through his eyelashes. She looks so much smaller without her heels, without her professionalism, without her husband. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw her look this tired. “It’s a nice color scheme. Distinctive.”

“Nice to know someone approves. I thought it looked kind of tacky in the Las Vegas casino sign way.”

A quiet laugh twists Pepper’s freckled cheeks up into a smile. “How long did it take you?” she inquires, pulling the hair tie on her wrist down and tying her hair up with it.

Peter pulls away from the coding long enough to stare at the suit. Allegedly it’s a suit Tony had worked on in between the fight with Cap and when they gallivanted off into space, but he’d only found it upon showing up to the building to help Pepper clean it up a bit. It was even better than the Iron Spider suit, despite still being in the works.

 _Was_ being the keyword.

The now-finished suit was more or less the same suit Tony had given him before the snap. Same material, at least. The design was. . the design wasn’t exactly like Iron Man’s suit, but it had been close enough to make Peter want to vomit at the time. He’d used a lot more gold in it than in the last one. He’d kept the red, of course, but he’d practically axed the blue entirely.  
Maybe he’d wanted Peter to take up the mantle.  
(All Peter had done is added a blue spider on the chest. It’s small, but he would have felt guilty if he hadn’t put it there. Like an intruder. Even worse, an impostor.)

“Not long,” he finally replies, swooping back into typing and thank fuck, he finally got that function to, you know, function. “Sorry if I’m squatting. FRIDAY said you were out shaking hands and accepting condolence casseroles from business investors until Thursday.”

Happy called. He said, in no uncertain terms, that Peter was pulling a Tony and had hit the established four day limit. She called her pilot and asked if there was any way they could get back by noon. She tells him none of this. Instead, she does them both a favor and does the same thing that she’s been doing for years, tells him, “I got tired of hearing them talk and cut it short. Part of being a CEO is abusing your power or else I wouldn’t have taken the job.”

This earns a smile. He nods vacantly, stares at the finished product. Maybe he could stand to scrap Karen’s voice while he’s at it.

Of course, she knows he’s already onto another thing to do, another project, another feature to tweak, another design to play around with. Another suit. When not stopped, the things to do get bigger and so does what you’re running from. She has half a mind to make sure the last liquor sweep was entirely successful, but she’s sure she’ll ask FRIDAY after lunch.

“I’m going to order some pizza,” Pepper starts after a long moment of silence while Peter opens up another can of worms.

“I’m good, but thanks.”

The only thing that’s missing is the Pep at the end of his sentence. She shivers, pads out of the lab, and calls the college she was supposed to appear at tomorrow in Tony’s honor to tell them she’ll have to reschedule.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading this akldjkadska !! i probably could have done better but i had this on the back burner since the far from home trailer and i figured i may as well clean it up and post it just in case anybody else would be interested in this kinda thing. i might do more chapters later on or just make several oneshots for this kinda universe but for now, here's this! the title's from things we lost in the fire by bastille btw


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